I program and host a long running movie series in Austin called Weird Wednesday. This blog will contain my ruminations and boominations about the films we show and also the films of our lives. I hope to get pretty discursive and obsessive here.

Friday, October 22, 2010

NOV 3, $1, DIR. BILL CASTLEMAN, 1973, 35MM, 90 MIN, NRAnyone who's spent any time at all around rock music knows one thing: bass players are the scum of the earth. Here's a movie with the courage to come out and say it. A small-time rock band with aspirations towards the big time is derailed by their psychotic four-stringer's crime spree. The electric bass may provide the bridge between the melody and the rhythm but if we have to put up with this sort of behavior we're better off without it! And this bassist is even worse than most. He's raping and killing all the groupies. A band this bad should be down on their knees thanking God every night for even having groupies at all, let alone groupies this hot. Fortunately Carol (ABBY: THE BLACK EXORCIST) Speed is on hand to take care of business in the explosive, double-barreled ending. Fuck Bass Players! (Lars)CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG AMERICAN HOUSEWIFENOV 10, $1, DIR. JOSEPH W. SARNO, 1974, 35MM, 105 MIN, NRNobody made adult movies like the late, great Joe Sarno. Starting in the mid-60’s, Sarno created his own unmistakable style of stylish, ultra-imaginative psychodramas. Regular Weird Wednesday viewers have seen some pretty over-the-top sex movies but there aren’t many sex movies that work on you like this one. Sarno, master of the kinky situation, concocts a whopper: a pair of swinging couples, neighbors; are dreading the arrival of their new houseguest, the attractive mother of one of the wild wives. They’ll all have to stay dressed and stop their round-the-clock boneathon... or will they? The attention Sarno pays to characterization and context really pays off. It’s an amazing experience that should not be missed. Bring a date, a raincoat, or both. (Lars)IMPULSE with Director William Grefe Live!NOV 17, $1, DIR WILLIAM GREFE, 1974, 35MM, 84 MIN, RDirector William Grefe will join us to tell us all about this all-time classic of Shatnersploitation. Certain stars loom so large in our personal mythology that we know them by one name. Think GARBO, BOGART, CAGNEY, and yes: SHATNER. A lot of people put down Shatner's acting but he's never boring to watch. Here he puts on an acting clinic, playing a murderous psychopath constantly on the verge of exploding. Shatner demonstrates fear, pain, dementia, demon rage -- the whole gamut of unsavory emotions, in his own inimitable Shatner way. It's always fun, when watching Shatner emote, to imagine that Captain Kirk has beamed into some sort of alternate reality. Here Kirk is transported into a metaphysical '70s South Florida, decked out in the finest polyester psycho-gear, and required to deal with a pulsing walnut-sized tumor throbbing against the aggression center of his brain. As you would expect, Shatner carries it off with all the wit and aplomb we expect from Our Greatest Living Actor. (Lars)THUNDERBOLT & LIGHTFOOTNOV 24, $1, DIR. MICHAEL CIMINO, 1974, 35MM, 114 MIN, RAt a time when he was the undisputed king of the silver screen, a box office draw beyond compare; Clint Eastwood began to strike off on his own and use his box-office clout to get some pretty daring and personal films made. But no one could have expected this bizarre buddy film featuring Eastwood as an expert in military armament who teams up with a wild young fuck-up (Jeff Bridges) to commit crimes and settle old scores in the modern west. Writer-director Michael Cimino's conception of these characters is strange to say the least and this movie must have been a staggering blind-side to anyone who paid to see what they thought would be a standard-issue Eastwood action film. Loaded with quotable lines and weird visual setpieces, it's one of the outlaw classics of the seventies. With George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis as Eastwood's vengeful and greedy former partners. If you liked FREEBIE AND THE BEAN, this is the next dose of your medicine. (Lars)BIG GUNSDEC 1, $1, DIR. DUCCIO TESSARI, 1973, 35MM, 90 MIN, RWhen we think of Europe in films we probably think of smooth-lined sophistication, an appealing mixture of old-world charm and modern taste. That's precisely what we get in the crime films of Duccio Tessari. Like protaganist Alain Delon, this movie is all coolness and style on the surface with a raging torrent of violence just below the skin. Delon plays the undisputed number one, class-A hitman in the world. When he decides to retire his employers decide to make it permanent. Needless to say it doesn't take and he gets really angry at them. He kills some people and looks really sharp doing it. This is one of the very best European crime films ever made, visually stunning and spiritually devastating. See it with someone you're secretly planning to kill! (Lars)INVINCIBLE ARMORDEC 8, $1, DIR. SEE YUEN-NG, 1977, 35MM, 90 MIN, ROne of the most purely satisfying old school kung fu movies ever. INVINCIBLE ARMOR looks like it was made for about 10 bucks but the kung fu is unreal. The young fight choreographers Yuen Biao and Corey Yuen push the action into the stratosphere and stars John Liu and Hwang Jang Lee put on a demonstration of precision face-kicking that will have you spitting out teeth. The title refers to a form of kung fu that is invincible except for one vulnerable point. I won't spoil it for you but when you see the final reckoning you will probably lose your shit. This movie has a lot going for it but my favorite part of the film is Hwang Jang Lee’s perfect embodiment of the no-good, shit-starting, white-haired old man with the (almost) unbeatable kung-fu technique.(Lars)CARNIVAL MAGIC with Special Surprises!DEC 15, $1, DIR. AL ADAMSON, 1981, 35MM, 80 MIN, NRIf you’ve ever checked out our Weird Wednesdays, you’ve seen some pretty strange things. But unless you’ve sparked up the sherm with Bigfoot on the moon you’ve never seen anything quite as awe-inspiringly demented as this “inspirational” kids’ movie from the director of SATAN’S SADISTS and BLACK SAMURAI. Why anyone thought this was appropriate for kids we’ll never understand. Although it might be educational to see the lion tamer gratuitously slapping his girlfriend around or a woman apparently giving an ape hand-relief (we didn’t believe it at first either), we don’t know if we’d be prepared to field Junior’s many questions about the unsavory goings-on in the cheapest, most depraved carnival this side of Tod Browning’s FREAKS. It’s a sick world and this Wednesday we’re going to help spread the disease. Oh, and if you bring your kids to this you’re on your own. (Lars)THE MAGIC CHRISTMAS TREEDEC 22, MIDNIGHT, $1, DIR. RICHARD PARISH, 1964, 35MM, 60 MIN, GSpecial seasonal reprise of the Christmas-killing hit! Here it is: the evil holiday movie we've all secretly been waiting for. It made its producers wealthy men and turned a generation of children into santaphobic sociopaths. We are still paying the cost. It's a very strange film and we're not sure why anyone would make it, but two words come to mind: Malicious Intent. Why else would the young hero be abducted by a witch and forced to uh, plant Satan's magic seed in his backyard? The seed grows into a tree that gives him three wishes. Then the kid abducts Santa Claus, straps him to a chair and abuses him until he gets all the toys in the world. Plus there's a long race between a lawnmower and a turtle and more tomfoolery presided over by the powers of Darkness, including the appearance of a giant who says inappropriate things. We cannot be held responsible for any lasting trauma. (Lars)THE DEAN'S WIFEDEC 29, MIDNIGHT, $1, DIR. BENJAMIN ONIVAS, 1969, 35MM, 73 MIN, NRI don't know what the sixties were really like but I'm pretty sure they weren't anything at all like this movie. Amid a backdrop of student protests the Dean's wife, played by the bodacious redhead Christine Murray, generously donates her time and affections to bettering the state of student/faculty relations. After several lively and spiritually uplifting scenes of the act of physical love, the action settles down to a party at the house of the Dean, where the depraved Professor Clove demonstrates his spanking technique for the benefit of the assembled guests and everybody (but the Dean) gets down and dirty. Pretty soon a bunch of radical students show up with their LSD and giant boobs, and the whole last reel is the Dean's big-breast-laden bad LSD trip. Should be shown to every college administrator in the country and the sooner the better. (Lars)